'Culturally' unfit Winnipeg couple allowed to keep Métis foster child for now, but may never be able to adopt him

A Winnipeg couple accused of being “culturally” unfit to raise a Métis foster child have successfully blocked efforts to have the child seized — although the pair’s Filipino heritage may stand in the way of their efforts to make the boy their legal son.

“[The boy] loves his foster parents and they love him,” says a decision drafted last week by an independent arbitrator. “That love should be given an opportunity to continue and blossom.”

The case concerns two unidentified foster parents, aged 44 and 55, who first obtained custody of a Métis boy two years ago, when he was only six months old.

The couple, who have no children of their own due to infertility, reported that they immediately “fell in love” with the boy. In adjudication documents they said “that if they had been given the opportunity to adopt [the boy] immediately they would have taken it.”

[The boy] loves his foster parents and they love him

Instead, Manitoba’s Métis Child and Family Services Authority (MCFSA), which had given them custody of the child, moved to have the boy sent to a “culturally appropriate” household.

The Authority cannot comment on specific cases, although the actions were very much in line with its stated mission to have “Métis families … care for and nurture Métis children.”

The agency was created in reaction to the “Sixties Scoop,” a government policy, beginning in the 1960s, of seizing children from aboriginal communities and adopting them out to non-aboriginal families.

Last week, Manitoba Métis Federation president David Chartrand specifically mentioned the Scoop in expressing his support for the Authority, saying in a statement “the Manitoba Métis Federation will never allow Métis children to suffer in that way again.”

Although he is legally Métis, the boy has a “European appearance,” note adjudication documents: He has a Ukrainian father, a Scottish, Dutch and Irish maternal grandmother and is light-skinned with blue eyes and light brown hair.

The boy’s birth mother testified that she identified as white growing up, and had never met her Métis father, whom she described as having a mixture of “French” and “native” ancestry.

She said she preferred the boy stay with his current foster parents.

For now, last week’s decision by adjudicator Jennifer Cooper blocks the efforts by MCFSA to remove the boy, although the foster parents will be unable to adopt the child without the Authority’s approval — and the MCFSA can still take the issue to court to order an adoption to a different home.

With that, Ms. Cooper closed her decision with a plea for “co-operation” between the two parties.

“In the best possible world, the foster parents would welcome and embrace the understanding that [the boy] is Métis, despite his European appearance,” wrote Ms. Cooper.

In response, she added, the Métis Child and Family Services Authority would recognize these “sincere efforts” and sign off on his adoption.

“This mutual cooperation, in [the boy’s] best interests, would support the greatest likelihood of a successful outcome for him.”